Shrewd Monk, Stubborn Emperor (Part III)

Ironically, the conflict between the Pope and the Emperor didn’t arise out of the practice of lay investiture.

15 Apr • Est. Reading Time: 12 minutes

That for him alone is it lawful, according to the needs of the time, to make new laws, to assemble together new congregations, to make an abbey of a canonry; and, on the other hand, to divide a rich bishopric and unite the poor ones. — Dictatus Papae, 1090 CE [1]

Previously we saw the coming conflict between Gregory VII and Heinrich IV, who were coming to a head over conflicting claims over northern Italy. Ironically, the conflict between the Pope and the Emperor didn’t arise out of the practice of lay investiture. Instead, the conflicts occur between a papacy trying to assert its influence over northern Italy, or to the German emperors, the kingdom of Italy. For the papacy, the previous salutary neglect of German monarchs when it came to the kingdom of Italy was justification for its legitimate claim over northern Italy. The German monarchs, before Heinrich IV, had looked the other way when it came to Italy. However, toward the end of the eleventh century CE, the German emperor, Heinrich IV, was looking to consolidate his claims over that area. Much of this might be linked to political and military pressures within German lands, where rival noble families threatened Heinrich’s own political and military ambitions. Northern Italy appears to be a logical place to consolidate power and shore up support for his agendas in German lands.

It is best to remember that the German emperors of the Holy Roman Empire weren’t seen as liege lords over their fellow German nobility. Instead, they were one among equals, and this complicated any political and military ambitions they possessed. Heinrich IV, like those before him, sought to shore up resources in the face of a feudal race to the bottom in the form of subinfeudation. Subinfeudation was a common development in many regions where feudalism was present.

Collins Dictionary of Law offers a legal overview of subinfeudation in English-speaking lands:

[T]he process whereby a freehold estate was created out of another freehold estate to be held by the grantee of the grantor in return for specified services or amounts of produce or money. The grant created a tenurial relationship between the parties. Subinfeudations (except those made by the Crown) were forbidden by the statute QUIA EMPTORES 1290.[2]

The process of subinfeudation is interesting, as it presents several political challenges to monarchs during the medieval period. Monarchs, after a short period, no longer controlled the lands they supposedly owned. Instead, nobility, by right of inheritance, could claim the lands were theirs, even if they didn’t (technically) own them. The nobles could, with impunity, subdivide their holdings among their vassals, who were loyal not to the kings but to the dukes or counts who controlled the fiefs. This subinfeudation created divided loyalties and stripped real power from monarchs. In France, subinfeudation made it impossible for the French monarchs to control the lands they technically owned. Instead, the French monarchs were confined, essentially, to the Ile de France, or the lands surrounding the city of Paris, and nothing more.

In England, subinfeudation was combated using several interesting methodologies. First, following the conquest of England, William the Conqueror established the English king as the liege lord over all nobles, including those holding land given to them by people other than the English king. Then, under Edward I, with the passage of Quia Emptores, subinfeudation was (essentially) outlawed:

Forasmuch as purchasers of lands and tenements of the fees of magnates and others, have many times previously entered into their fees to the prejudice of the same (lords) since to them (the purchasers) the free tenants of these same magnates and others have sold their lands and tenements to be held in fee for themselves and their heirs from the subinfeudators and not from the lords in chief of the fees, whereby the same lords in chief have often lost the escheats, marriages and wardships of lands and tenements belonging to their fees, which thing indeed seemed very hard and extreme to the magnates and other lords, and moreover, in this case, manifest disinheritance; the lord king in his parliament at Westminster after Easter in the 18th year of his reign, viz., in the Quinzime of St. John the Baptist, at the instance of his magnates, did grant, provide and decree that henceforth it shall be lawful for any free man to sell at will his lands or tenements or a part of them; in such manner, however, that the infeudated person shall hold that land or tenement from the same lord in chief and by the same services and customs by which his infeudator previously held them. And if he shall have sold to any one any part of those his lands or tenements, the infeudated person shall hold that (part) directly of the lord in chief, and shall straightway be charged with as much service as pertains or ought to pertain to that lord for that parcel, according to the quantity of the land or tenement sold; and so in this case there shall fall away from the lord in chief that part of the service which is to be performed by the hand of the infeudator, from the time when the infeudated person ought to be attendant and answerable to that same lord in chief, according to the quantity of the land or tenement sold, for that parcel of service thus due. And it must be known that by the said sales or purchases of lands or tenements, or any part of them, those lands or tenements in part or in whole, may not come into mortmain, by art or by wile, contrary to the statute recently issued on this point. And it is to be known that that statute concerning lands sold holds good only for those holding in fee simple, etc.; and that it extends to future time; and it shall begin to take effect at the feast of St. Andrew next coming.[3]

In other words, Quia Emptores allowed the English monarchs to keep a thumb on the nobility by outlawing the alienation of their lands granted to them by the English monarch.[4] That meant nobles couldn’t divvy up their lands as they had before. The subinfeudation had created a conflicting hierarchy of obedience and loyalty, and the English monarchs offer a great case study in resisting the corrosive influence of subinfeudation. However, the German monarchs didn’t have much luck in countering subinfeudation and the political, economic, and military power of their fellow noblemen in the German-speaking lands. This, of course, leads to creative solutions, as seen under the Ottonian state-church system, discussed in Part One of this posting series, used by Heinrich IV, and those before and after him. Moreover, Heinrich IV sought to cement his claims over northern Italy, so he could use this region to counter the power of German nobles. What he didn’t count on was the resistance mounted by the Roman bishop, i.e., the pope.

In response to the Gregorian reforms under Gregory VII, Heinrich IV used the clergy to pressure the stubborn pope into backing off on his claims over northern Italy. “On 24 January [1076 CE] two archbishops and a majority of the German episcopate addressed a declaration to Gregory VII withdrawing their obedience from the pontiff.”[5] The reasons, again, for the clergy to support Heinrich IV here over the pope is pretty interesting. Papal supremacy wasn’t a reality during the latter part of the eleventh century CE. The loyalties of the German episcopate were with Heinrich IV, who pulled the strings, allowing these clergymen to keep their positions during his tenure. Heinrich IV even managed to pressure two archbishops from northern Italy to withdraw their support from Gregory VII, which speaks volumes concerning the political realities these clergymen were aware of, even in the eleventh century CE. Therefore, the very real political pressure Heinrich IV exerted presented a challenge to the Gregorian reforms and the legitimacy of Gregory VII’s claims over northern Italy, among other things.

What Heinrich IV didn’t realize was he opened a Pandora’s Box with the stubborn monk, Hildebrand, who had his political tools to pressure the German emperor. Following the pronouncements of the Italian and German episcopate, supporting Heinrich IV over the papacy, Gregory VII was quick to react by excommunicating the German emperor from the Church:

I now declare in the name of the omnipotent God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, that Henry, son of the Emperor Henry, is deprived of his kingdom of Germany and Italy. I do this by thy authority and in defense of the honor of thy Church, because he had rebelled against it. He who attempts to destroy the honor of the Church should be deprived of such honor as he may have held. He has refused to obey as a Christian should […] I place him under the curse.[6]

Excommunicating a monarch was a serious step, even for someone like Gregory VII. However, it was an important political move that Gregory VII took because it was the only real move he had against someone like Heinrich IV, who could muster larger military forces and put the squeeze on Gregory VII. The spiritual weapon wielded by Gregory VII had a sharp edge. It hadn’t much in the way of precedent. There were few instances of its use before the eleventh century CE, such as St. Ambrose of Milan, who during the fourth-century CE, excommunicated the Roman Emperor Theodosius I for his massacre of several thousand people in Thessalonica.[7]

According to a narrative handed down to us via St. Augustine, Theodosius I was forced to submit to the power of St. Ambrose, who was holding him responsible for his inexcusable actions:

With “religious humility”, says St. Augustine (DeCiv.Dei.,V,xxvi), Theodosius submitted; “and, being laid hold of by the discipline of the Church, did penance in such a way that the sight of his imperial loftiness prostrated made the people who were interceding for him weep more than the consciousness of offence had made them fear it when enraged”. “Stripping himself of every emblem of royalty”, says Ambrose in his funeral oration (c. 34), “he publicly in church bewailed his sin. That public penance, which private individuals shrink from, an Emperor was not ashamed to perform; nor was there afterwards a day on which he did not grieve for his mistake.”[8]

In a world where oaths and faith dominated, Gregory VII wielded the best political tool he had in his spiritual arsenal as the pope. Politically speaking, the sentence of ex-communication released Heinrich IV’s subjects from their oaths of fealty. Thus, his subjects did not need to heed his orders, creating a chaotic political situation for Heinrich IV. As an excommunicate, Henrich IV lost the support of the German nobility and the very clergy he used to try and squeeze Gregory VII through withdrawal of their support. The reasons for Heinrich IV’s lost support amongst the clergymen who originally supported him is clear: They didn’t want to suffer the same fate as Heinrich IV. If they, too, were excommunicated from the Church by Gregory VII, they would have lost their valuable positions within the Church itself.

With the nobility, and the Church, calling for his removal, what could Heinrich IV do? What options did he have left? How could he best the stubborn monk at his own game? The conflict between State and Church, between papal supremacy and political realities, under Gregory VII and Heinrich IV, will conclude, albeit for a short time, but it won’t officially end until the passage of an understanding called the Concordat of Worms (c. 1122 CE).

REFERENCES:

1.      Passage translated in Ernest F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1910), 366–367.

2.      “subinfeudation.” In Collins Dictionary of Law, by William J. Stewart. 3rd ed. Collins, 2006. http://voyager.wnmu.edu:2061/cgi-bin/proxRedr.pl?letsGo=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Fcollinslaw%2Fsubinfeudation%2F0%3FinstitutionId%3D6708.

3.      Passage translated in Ernest F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1896), 149–150.

4.      “quia emptores.” In Collins Dictionary of Law, by William J. Stewart. 3rd ed. Collins, 2006. http://voyager.wnmu.edu:2061/cgi-bin/proxRedr.pl?letsGo=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Fcollinslaw%2Fquia_emptores%2F0%3FinstitutionId%3D6708.

5.      Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy, 121.

6.      Milton Viorst, The Great Documents of Western Civilization, (Philadelphia, PA: Chilton Books, 1965), 55–6.

7.      The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1st ed., s.v. “St. Ambrose.” (by J. Loughlin), https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/St._Ambrose.

8.      Quoted in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1st ed., s.v. “St. Ambrose.” (by J. Loughlin), https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/St._Ambrose.